(Rev) Dr. Navamani Peter – A Teacher, a Minister, and an Advocate for Women
Jesus saw women as intelligent, thinking humans, equal with men. His attitude with women was remarkable in a day when men thought women were a lower grade than themselves.
– Navamani Peter, Introduction, Jesus Talks to Women[1]
Dr Navamani Elia Peter (6 April 1933 – 29 June 2025) is one of the towering and gentle personalities among the foremothers of ATTWI who served as its President for two terms (1990-1997). All through her life she consistently created spaces and opportunities for both lay and theologically trained women in India to build their capacities, make their contributions, and take their rightful place as equal members in church and society.
An Advocate for the Cause of Women
Dr. Navamani Peter gave voice to the cause of women’s leadership in churches in general, and to women’s ordination in particular, at a time when the spaces for women in ecclesiastical leadership, decision making in churches, and theological education, was still rare. Her leadership in many national, regional, and international church-based bodies is a testament to her influence and commitment to various causes related to women in church and society.
She held significant roles in church bodies such as National Council of Churches in India, World Methodist Council (WMC), World Day of Prayer (WDP) International Committee, and in the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA). She was part of the delegation from World Federation of Methodist and Uniting Church Women that took part in the 49th session of United Nations Commission on Human Rights (Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities), at Switzerland in 1997.[2] She was the first woman to be nominated as the National President of the Bible Society of India (The India Bible Society Trust Association) from 2007-2013.[3]
As one of the foremothers among Indian theologians, she participated in landmark events in Asian and global ecumenical history. Notably, she participated in a national consultation on women’s perspectives held in India in 1984 sponsored by Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWOT).[4] She also participated in the Seventh Assembly of World Council of Churches in Canberra, Australia, 7-20 February 1991.[5]
With a B.Sc., and B.Ed., to her credit, and a first career as a teacher behind her, her entry into theological education in the culturally diverse campus of United Theological College, Bangalore, in the 1980s, to acquire her Bachelor of Divinity degree, widened her horizons with an ecumenical exposure that grounded all her future involvements. The Senate of Serampore recognised her enormous contributions to church, theological education, and society by awarding Navamani Peter an honorary Doctorate along with Mrs. Stains in the year 2000.
Expansive ecumenical involvement and vision for theologically educated and lay women
Her wide ecumenical exposure at the national, regional, and international level, her ongoing commitment to uplift women around her through opportunities for exposure both nationally and internationally, her pastoral concern for people, and her abiding commitment to the vision of ATTWI was evident throughout her life until her last years.
During her tenure as President of ATTWI, she promoted other women for scholarships to travel abroad for conferences, and gain exposure in ecumenical spaces internationally. She was committed to nurturing bodies of lay women like All India Council for Christian Women (AICCW) that she felt was a strong independent body to empower lay women from all over the country. She lauded the work of Aruna Ganandason, who donned the role of Secretary of AICCW, in building it up, until she moved on to another role in the WCC. Navamani travelled widely in her various roles in WDP, Fellowship of the Least Coin (FLC), Asian Church Women’s Conference (ACWC), and World Federation of Methodist women and made lasting friendships with other women theologians across Asia. In her own words, “During my travels I met wonderful women in 42 countries. I praise God for that privilege. I cherish those friendships and love I received from Asian women theologians like Yong Ting Jin (AWRC- Malaysia), Cora (Cora Tabing-Rayes, CCA & ICFLC, Philippines), Sr. Virginia Fabella (Philippines), and many others!”[6]
In 1999 she, along with Julie Nathanie, and Mrs. E.V. Mathews started the Inter-Church Women’s Fellowship in Bangalore that included Roman Catholic women as well. They organised seminars to help women on health and social issues and through World Day of Prayer collections raised support for various deserving projects in and around Bangalore.
Until the last years of her life she was actively involved in her own church’s neighbourhood fellowships that met regularly for Bible Study and encouragement. She personally sent out birthday and wedding anniversary greetings to almost 50 people in a year. She took joy in doing this because, in her own words, “They look forward to my greetings. Some are lonely, some sick and some just need a friend!”[7]
She continued to keep herself busy by writing meditations for the Upper Room, a bi-monthly devotional Methodist publication from USA, that brought encouragement to many readers worldwide. She was actively involved in the official ATTWI Family WhatsApp group until the end. She was deeply concerned that the space within ATTWI should be inclusive of ALL theologically trained women, without any hierarchy between ordained women and theologically trained women who were not ordained. She expressed that “we want to encourage ordination and see more and more young women to come into pulpit ministry. But that should not be interpreted or understood that ATTWI is made up of only ordained women or in a hierarchical sense. As Theologically Trained Women, we must be biblically role models in encouraging and building each other without conflict.”[8]
An uncompromising feminist theologian who believed in a ‘God who weeps with us,’ in the faith rising from resilience of women, and that ‘salvation is available to all.’
As a theologian Navamani Peter’s writings were grounded, simple, and spoke equally to the realities of a person in the pew and the person in the street. She did not use grandiose academic language, yet her theologising carried a rare simplicity of thought while being profoundly moving.
With a perspective far ahead of her times, writing on what family means Navamani Peter said: “The family is a unit of interacting persons that shapes the personality development of its members and is adaptive to social change”.[9] In a simple and scathing observation calling out the double standards that society placed on women and men, she pointed out how a widower “is not affected by any taboos,” and his family will arrange another marriage for him within a year.”[10] She minced no words in boldly calling out the double standards that religion and our own churches perpetuate:
“We must accept that religion, which professes to worship God and instructs people to follow God’s purpose for the humanity has itself been partially responsible for distorting God’s image in the world. […] There are those who vehemently oppose the ordination of women on the basis of doctrine and scripture. […] Women have remained vulnerable in society and have been oppressed in the church. […] Women in the church still experience the discrimination in terms of employment, participation in the decision-making bodies, the masculine language that is used in liturgy, the laws of the church that are discriminatory, the attitude of the people in the church including women towards divorced women, etc., […] The church, which preaches equality often, promotes this discrimination. Christian families also follow these norms which patriarchy has set in society.”[11]
Her faith was rooted in the deep resilience that rose from personal loss, and this faith, in turn, helped her to pastorally “empathise with families who were going through experience of loss and grief.” [12] In her profoundly simple devotions for the Upper Room she writes with no embellishments but the raw strength of faith born out of tribulation: “My son, who was 19 and a first-year medical student, died suddenly in a swimming accident. We were devastated. In our pain we questioned God: Why did this happen when his future seemed so bright?”[13] She goes on to say that she found comfort in the words of a friend who answered the question about where was God at such a time with, “God was right there weeping with you?” Navamani then affirms: “I was reminded of the time Jesus grieved with Martha and Mary when their brother Lazarus died. God is indeed right by our side grieving when we grieve.” She further says that she later went on to enrol in seminary “to study the scriptures and learn more about the God who weeps with us,” and how her work as a pastor was grounded in this belief in the God who weeps with us.
Her expansive vision of a God whose “salvation is available to us all”, shines through when she writes of her domestic helper who had rushed to request a visiting pastor in Navamani’s home to pray for her son’s relief from shoulder pain. Navamani compares her to the Canaanite woman approaching Jesus pleading for her daughter, and whom Jesus applauded for her faith. She goes on to say “God’s grace and love are immeasurable and unconditional for all. We can learn much about faith from the resilience of these women. We need not give up in times of suffering and pain. We can trust that God’s salvation is available to us all. And we can put our hope in God, who cares and loves beyond our comprehension.”[14]
Dr Navamani believed that Christian women must not be satisfied with our own empowerment alone, and must not become complacent with certain ecclesiastical spaces alone, but must fight for justice for every last woman in the society, especially the most vulnerable and most oppressed:
“We Christian women must rise up and reclaim the image in which we have been made. Let us not be satisfied that few leaders and the Christian women have the privileges and the rights. Let us mobilise women at the local church, the women at grassroots level and sensitize them. Let us not leave this challenge until every sister of ours achieves this image of equality.”[15]
ATTWI and the churches in India will miss this kind and grand old lady that Dr (Rev) Navamani Peter was. Her committed service, her passion for the cause of women, and her gentle pastoral compassion for all whom she met and embraced, will continue to be remembered by the churches and especially the women in India. Theologically trained women in India owe a huge debt to Dr Navamani Peter.
In the words of some of the members of ATTWI:
“She was a leader and a guide;”
“Her contributions to the growth of ATTWI will never be forgotten;”
“We will cherish her leadership;”
“She is a real leader who worked hard for God;”
May she rest in peace, safe in the arms of the Saviour she loved and served so well!
– Jessica Richard, 29 June 2025
[1] As quoted by Praisy David, “The Battle of Being a Christian Feminist: Reclaiming the Original Design,” Campus Link, 24, no. 4 (July-Aug 2022): 26, accessed 29 June 2025, https://campuslinklive.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Jul-Aug-2022-Work-vs-Vocation_Ecopy_compressed.pdf
[2] “Provisional List of Attendance” in Commission On Human Rights Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, Forty-ninth session, E/CN.4/Sub.2/1997/1/Misc.1, 8 August 1997, p.22.
[3] “Bible Society of India,” Wikipedia accessed 29 June 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_Society_of_India#History
[4] Aruna Gnanadason, Theology of Humanhood: Women’s Perspectives: Report of a national consultation, (ISPCK, New Delhi, 1986) p.155.
[5] Signs of the Spirit: Official Report, Seventh Assembly, Canberra, Australia, 7-20 February 1991 (WCC Publication,1991)
[6] WhatsApp Chats with current (June 2024 –2027) President of ATTWI, Jessica Richard, (October 2023 – April 2025)
[7] WhatsApp Chats with current (June 2024 –2027) President of ATTWI, Jessica Richard, (October 2023 – April 2025)
[8] WhatsApp Chats with current (June 2024 –2027) President of ATTWI, Jessica Richard, (October 2023 – April 2025)
[9] Navamani Peter, “A Christian view of the Family” in NCC Review, September 1996, p. 528 as quoted by Praisy David, “The Battle of Being a Christian Feminist: Reclaiming the Original Design,” Campus Link, 24, no. 4 (July-Aug 2022): 26, accessed 29 June 2025, https://campuslinklive.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Jul-Aug-2022-Work-vs-Vocation_Ecopy_compressed.pdf
[10] Navamani Peter, “Woman! Reclaim Your Image!,” in Women in Church and Society: Essays in Honour of Florence Robinson, ed. Prasanna Kumari (Peter Print Services, 1999) 167.
[11] Navamani Peter, “Woman! Reclaim your Image,” in Women in Church and Society, ed. Prasanna Kumari, (Chennai: Department of Women’s Studies, Gurukul Lutheran Theological College & Research Institute, 1999), 165, 168.
[12] Navamani Peter, “God Who Weeps with Us,” Upper Room, Devotion for Wednesday, 26 April 2023, p.60.
[13] Navamani Peter, “God Who Weeps with Us,” Upper Room, Devotion for Wednesday, 26 April 2023, p.60.
[14] Navamani Peter, “Unwavering Faith,” Upper Room, Devotion for Monday 27 May 2024, p.30.
[15] Navamani Peter, “Woman! Reclaim your Image,” 168.